Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/32

 14 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS and friendship of his Republican colleagues and to command the respect of his political opponents. This was his first experience in a legislative body, but he soon took rank among the foremost debaters of the senate. Chairman of the Committee on Ter ritories, he was persistent in his demand for the ad mission to statehood of North Dakota, South Da kota, Montana, Washington, and Idaho, and, though not succeeding at the time, he had the pleas ure afterward of putting his presidential signature to the laws making them all States of the Union. In his speeches in the senate he criticised Mr. Cleve land s vetoes of the pension bills, voted and spoke in favor of an increase of the navy, the reform of the civil service, a judicious tariff reform; he fa vored every measure of public policy which had received the approval of his party. He had always been a strong partisan, and had believed and acted in the belief that since the Republican party was organized it has done nothing of which Republicans should be ashamed, or at least nothing to justify a change of allegiance from it to the Democratic party. From one point of view, such a course in a public man may be criticised. It may be doubted, however, if any Indiana Republican who has been confronted with the type of Democrats which have dominated that party for the last thirty years is to be censured for standing by his own party. The Republican party leaders saw in 1888 that